There has long been a desire for three dimensional (3-D) display of visual images for entertainment and education. Effective systems have been devised to record multiple images and record them with the required interocular spacing as is achieved in the human eye/brain system. Examples of systems for mounting and controlling multiple cameras to achieve such filming are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,557,570 for CAMERA ASSEMBLY FOR THREE-DIMENSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY and No. 4,650,305 for CAMERA MOUNTING APPARATUS.
After the images are recorded, the problem of display or projection for the viewer remains. This requires the use of some type of coding or identifying the left and right images and some type of decoding by the display to insure that the left eye views only the left scene and the right eye views only the right scene. Usually this is done employing special glasses to be worn by the viewers. The glasses will provide the decoding of the projected images.
The wearing of special glasses is undesirable from the viewer's standpoint and expensive for the exhibitors.
Employing holographic technology, apparent 3-D effects have been achieved without the use of glasses. Holographic technology has, however, not been readily adapted to the computer, video, arcade game and home television industry for several reasons and does not lend itself to real-time motion video or to full color displays.
The computer market requires high resolution displays which are usually viewed by a single person sitting at a computer console. Stereoscopic or 3-D computer displays which do not require 3-D glasses have eluded development.
Liquid-crystal displays have been developed for projecting computer or video images on an overhead projector. An example of such a display is the Ovation 820C 8.4" diagonal color active-matrix liquid-crystal projection panel from Proxima Corp. of San Diego, Calif. or models QA-1260 and QA-1650 from Sharp Electronics of Japan.
Likewise, high quality, low cost, compact video cameras are now available. This makes it possible to produce multiple video images of a scene with the images combined into stereoscopic arrays which may be stored on any suitable medium, processed by a computer and displayed, employing this invention for viewing without the need for glasses.